Agricultural equipment, such as a tractor or a self-propelled harvester, includes mechanical systems, electrical systems, hydraulic systems, and electro-hydraulic systems, configured to prepare fields for planting or to harvest crops.
Harvesters of various configurations, including sugarcane harvesters, have harvesting systems of various types. Harvesting systems for a sugarcane harvester, for example, include assemblies or devices for cutting, chopping, sorting, transporting, and otherwise gathering and processing sugarcane plants. Typical harvesting assemblies, in different embodiments, include a base cutter assembly (or “base cutter”), feed rollers, and cutting drums.
To actively harvest crops, the sugarcane harvester gathers and processes material from rows of sugarcane plants. In the case of one type of sugarcane harvester, the gathered sugarcane stalks are cut into billets that move through a loading elevator to an elevator discharge, where the cut sugarcane stalks are expelled to a collector, such as the sugarcane wagon. Leaves, trash, and other debris are separated from the billets and ejected onto the field.
In various harvesters, harvesting assemblies are hydraulically powered by an engine-driven pump or electrically powered by a generator or other electrical power supply. The harvesting assemblies include rotating drums that move the cut stalks toward a chopper. The rotating drums are driven by a hydraulic motor or an electric motor that rotationally drives the roller to continuously move the billets to the wagon. The motors include splines that engage the roller to drive the roller about a rotation axis.
Debris, including dust and dirt, can collect in spaces located between metal parts that present several problems. For example, in case of the sugarcane harvester, debris tends to get accumulated in the spaces located at the ends of the feed rollers.
Feed rollers, and particularly the splines of the motor driving the feed roller, are exposed to the external environment and to the debris found there. The debris accumulates and often causes the splines driving the rollers to wear out. Depending on the configuration of the rollers and the motors driving the rollers, the accumulated debris may be removed during regular servicing to ensure that the feed rollers run smoothly, thereby avoiding increased load on motors which reduces bearing life. In addition, the feed rollers are made of metal and the accumulated debris causes metal corrosion, another undesirable effect of the accumulated debris. To reduce the effects of the accumulated debris, the harvester is stopped to clean out the debris, which reduces the time in which the harvester is productive.
What is needed therefore is a sugarcane harvester including a harvesting system having harvesting assemblies that are less susceptible to the damaging effects of the debris resulting from the harvesting of sugarcane.